BOOK REVIEW - DETENTION OF THE LIVING DEAD by RUSTY FISCHER & FUN DELETED SCENE WITH ME AS A CHARACTER - THE AFTERMATH

Today on Novels On The Run I have my book review for Rusty Fischer's new book, 'Detention Of The Living Dead' and a deleted scene with me ( Michelle) as a character.... too funny, titled 'The Aftermath'. Rusty has had some fun and written me into a deleted scene. Rather cool!

By: Rusty Fischer
Published By: Bono Books
Released : October 2012
Details : Digital, 181 Pages

RATING: 4 BONE CRUNCHING STARS!!!


Blurb: Goodreads

Maxine “Max” Compton is in detention when the outbreak starts; so are several other students when Max’s best friend Brie storms in – chomping on the thigh bone of their favorite Home Ec teacher, Ms. Watkins!

Brie is a zombie, and quickly starts biting everyone in the room—even her best friend, Max!

When the class realizes what happens, it’s too late; they are all zombies—and they’re no longer alone.

Now a thin gray man in a white lab coat is testing them; making them read, and once they can no longer read, the zombies are led from the room, never to be seen again.

One by one the zombies stop reading, all but a few of them, Max included. Oh, and that cute thug she’s been crushing on for years, Zander Cash!

That’s when Max learns that there are good zombies, and bad zombies. And if she’s to survive, she has to pick a side.

Who knew Detention could be this hard… or last forever?


BOOK REVIEW by Michelle :

I have read and enjoyed ‘Zombies Don’t Cry’ one of many works by Rusty Fischer. Detention of the Living Dead has reunited me with Rusty’s humorous, gory style of writing from teenager’s points of view.

Who would have thought that these Rejects of the Detention room would have found themselves in the safest place during the ‘Gym Class Zombie Massacre?

Or was it?

Who can be trusted?

I can’t tell you, you have to read the book.

Rusty has a wonderful imagination that translates so well on to paper. I found myself invested and rooting for his Zombie characters.

Maxine, Cory, Brie, Bobby, Nikki and Jaycee have all found themselves in a rather unfortunate situation. They have become Zombies.

Chained to their detention room desks with the Proctor overseeing their possible doom, having to read a comic book , ‘The Adventures of Gamma Man’, the deciding factor in their individual fates.

Stun guns, chains, Reapers, Reekers, ginormous burp worthy smoothies, a licence plate worthy of a story and underwater scenes, make up some of the fun in this book.

Rusty knows how to keep the pace running at his type of Zombie rate and he will throw all sorts at the reader. Rusty throws in the humour but he also has the reader ‘feeling’ emotion towards his characters. Their loss and what this life now means to them. I liked, ‘The garden of souls’.

There is one scene that had me literally ‘feeling’ his words. It involves the parallel between model plane kits and bones snapping. Another scene involving air shaft vents had me a little anxious with me wanting to hurry Max along.

Maxine is a great character, although she makes some mistakes in her endeavour to help her detention class mates ..... well, she has just become a zombie, it takes some adjusting, she is brave and works enough out to help her remaining class mates to relative safety.

I loved watching everything kind of flip on certain characters and thy enemy may no longer be thy enemy. A friend may no longer be a friend.

Rusty will have you feeling the human to zombie transformation deep down into your bones. This is a fun read with a very Rusty style humor attached to it.

The ending makes me think there is the possibility of a sequel........looking forward to it Rusty!



FAVE QUOTE:

I mean, the whole getting-chased-by-Reapers-and-you-never-know-when-one-is-going-to-pop-out-from-behind-a-tree-and-behead-you thing is a little stressful, to say the least, but I still say that freedom from blisters is almost—almost—worth it.

Michelle

NOW

FOR SOME AWESOME FUN!!!

AND!!!

I just 'feel' plain COOL being written into a deleted scene by Rusty Fischer, Mr Zombie extraordinaire. 

Because......well it is.

So without further ado, when you see the name Michelle...... well that would be me. I'm only bragging a smidge :) Thanks Rusty!

***************

The Aftermath: A Deleted “Epilogue” Scene from Detention of the Living Dead

By Rusty Fischer, author of Detention of the Living Dead

So, what happens to the rest of the students at Catfish Cove High School? What becomes of them when our heroes, or villains, finally escape the Detention Room? That is, IF they escape? (No spoilers here, you see!)

Well, now you can find out!

Here

For the first time ever...like EVER!!!

And available only at Novels on the Run.....

.....is a deleted “epilogue” scene about what happened after the zombie invasion that turned a regular day of detention into… da dum…

Detention of the Living Dead:

THE AFTERMATH

          The reporter fiddles with his digital recorder. It’s sleek and shiny, about the size of a thumb drive and he’s all thumbs as he tries to get it to work.

          He’s young, can’t be more than 21- or 22-years-old, and cute in a preppy, khaki pants and no socks under his leather loafers kind of way. His neck’s a little too long and there are finger smudges on his glass lenses, but he’s human and, at this point, that’s pretty much “off the scale” hot as far as I’m concerned.

          Mom sits nearby, fiddling with the clasp of her purse. I keep shooting her “I’m okay, really Mom” looks but I know she doesn’t believe me. It would help if I wasn’t still dripping wet from the fumigation shower and wearing hospital scrubs and paper slippers on my feet.

          “Contamination,” they said as they hosed me down, powerful jets of water stinging my body. “Just want to make sure you’re all you, you know?”

          Now I’m sitting in the back of some converted 18-wheeler behind the school, all sterile and rigged with lights and air conditioning and fold-up picnic tables. They’ve been debriefing me for hours, and it’s dark out, now, but the reporter from the local paper promised I’d get to tell my side of the story, so I’ve agreed to stay.

          That, and they’ve been pumping me full of hot coffee and vending machine chocolate cupcakes ever since I walked in, so I’m pretty much wired for anything at this point.

          Preppy guy finally gets his recorder working and looks across the fold-up picnic table at me. “Can you state your name so I get it right in tomorrow’s paper.”

          “Michelle,” I say.

          “Can you spell it?”

          I do and he nods. “What class were you in when the outbreak started?”

          Already, I have to correct him. “Well, technically school was out for the day, so I wasn’t really in class. But I’m office aide 7^th period, and I always like to test the equipment before the morning announcements the next day before I leave.”

          He’s nodding, the little recorder on my side of the table, scribbling notes in a little black book on his side. I wait until he’s done, and remind myself to speak more slowly next time he asks me a question.

          He looks up, almost greedily. “And when did the first zombie break into the front office?”

          “Well, that’s just it,” I spit, instantly forgetting my promise and rushing through the tale. “They were already in the office when the outbreak started.”

          He makes a little, vaguely unattractive, squinty face. “How do you mean?”

          “Principal Standish has this zero tardiness policy and he’s real strict about it. So, I guess, he went around gathering all these stray students who were wandering the halls tardy for class.”

          The reporter stops scribbling. “Well, how many were there?”

          “Only three or four, at first.”

          “At first?”

          “Well, I wasn’t really paying attention because the announcements room is just off the office, in this little soundproof studio thingie, but… some of the dudes he was bringing in were pretty cute so—”

          “Cute?” His face shrivels, his eyes get beady and I notice, lips parted, that his teeth are too small. “Weren’t they all zombies?”
          I take about my 435^th sip of coffee since I escaped from the school. “Hey, don’t judge. I didn’t know that then. Anyway, more started coming. I guess they smelled each other, or us, or both, whatever. There are these six chairs outside of Standish’s office, and they were full, and so a few were standing.”

          He nods, head down, scribbling furiously. “And?” he says, not even looking up, using his free hand to make that rolling “Hurry up” motion.

I give my mom a kind of “do you believe this guy?” look and dig back in: “Well, nothing much really happened until Chuck Akers showed up just toward the end of the day. He does that, sometimes. He’s a big deal around here, starting QB for the football team, always wearing his letterman’s jacket, whatever. He likes to spend the last twenty minutes or so just killing time in the front office, plus it doesn’t hurt that the new secretary, Ms. Bascomb, is major hot and he totally has a straight-up MILF crush on her, so—”

Mom finally speaks up. “Michelle!”

“Sorry, Mom, it’s true.”

The reporter gives Mom a funny look and then, back to me, “Let’s just stick to the zombies, huh Melissa?”

I give mom another “you see what I mean about this dude?” look. “Michelle,” I correct him. Then: “I am telling you about the zombies, because this is when it started. Chuck was doing his whole ‘look at me I’m king of the world’ deal, strutting around in his tight jeans, when he bumped into one of the zombies. Or wannabe zombies or whatever they were. The dude growled, Chuck pushed him and, boom, the zombie just dove right in and took a chunk out of Chuck’s shoulder. Bit right through the leather sleeve of his letterman’s jacket and came back with a chunk of flesh, even a little bone, it looked like.”

Prepster looks up from his notes. “And you saw all this?”

“I heard the tussle between zombie boy and Chuck and was watching it all go down. Next thing I know, Chuck is projectile vomiting all over the new secretary’s silk blouse, she’s screaming, and he reaches out and yanks her arm right the hell off.”

“Michelle!”

“Sorry, Mom, but that’s what happened. After that, Principal Standish had me turn on the morning announcement video equipment and that’s when he started screaming about the outbreak to anyone who would listen...”

I notice I’m breathing a little heavy, and that my fists are clenched. I look over at Mom and she seems blurry. I wipe my eyes and suddenly it’s much better.

The only sound in the room now is me sniffling, just a bit, and reporter dude scribbling in his pad. He looks up, stretches his thumb – it must be pretty sore after all that – and squints at me.

“How’d you get out?”

I show him the bandage around my ankle, the scrapes on my arm. “I dove out the window, just like everyone else who survived…”

So there you have it, a scene that never made it into the book and that you can only find here, on the Novels on the Run blog! Thanks, Michelle, for hosting me and thanks to all of you for reading this. And I hope it will add to your enjoyment of the book if you ever get to read Detention of the Living Dead, out this month from Decadent Books!

Yours in YA,

Rusty

About the Author 

Zombies Don't Forgive

Due for Release

April 2013

Rusty Fischer is the author of Zombies Don’t Cry, as well as several other popular zombie books, including Panty Raid at Zombie High, Detention of the Living Dead and the Reanimated Readz series of 99-cent living dead shorts.

Rusty runs the popular website Zombies Don’t Blog @ www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com. At Zombies Don’t Blog you can read more about Rusty’s work, view his upcoming book covers and read – or download – completely FREE books & stories about… zombies!